Author's Notes

Digital World time and real world time are in no way in sync. Sometimes months pass in DW in ten minutes (frontier canon), and other times a week or so can take a day or so. Still, DW time is always faster. Ever hear of the phrase "time runs true in the house and meanders elsewhere" or something like that. It's in the Keys to the Kingdom. In this case, the House is the Digital World.

The reason the narration is jumping around this chapter is because it's omnipresent Kouichi's POV and his thoughts/feelings/whatever are jumping around like that. The writing sort of reflects his state of mind.

Our nameless doctor is largely based of Mira in the Terra Nova series. Look up her story if you haven't heard of her.

I had a pet spider once. I'm saying that because there's a few references in here. It was a cute little one though, till my mum put it out in the garden.

Watashi wa anata o aishite means I love you. The entire sentence is: Otou-san wa, watashi wa anata o aishite, ie. Dad, I love you. It's a bit different to Ai shiteru, which is romantic love.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think.

Don't forget to leave a comment. Just no attempted murders; I'll be forced to hide myself away and we know what happens to updates then. As it is, I'm running on backlog which is slowly drying…seeing as it's taking multiple days to write up chapters I'd finish in less than a single one.

Slaves to the Trade

Money. Power. Domination. These things caused his world to be stripped away. 'You may hold my body, but my soul is free.' Can that truth be saved, or is it doomed to be forever squelched beneath a master?

Character/s: Kouichi K

Genre/s: Drama/Angst

Rating: T

Chapter 9

'Hey, wake up and swallow. It'd do no good you starving on my watch.'

He heard her, the Doctor as he had come to call her. The last time she'd woke him up was with the same request. The time before just a tad altered. Actually, she had dabbed some stinging liquid onto the split skin on his forehead and the subsequent stinging pain had been enough to jolt him into consciousness (although not a total form of coherence; he was still struggling with that), especially as it didn't feel like any antiseptic he was familiar with, or even the old cobweb method his grandfather had been so fond of. Of course, if it had been that, the sting wouldn't have woken him.

Back to case in point, he certainly heard the sharp voice. It was kind of hard to miss, cold and almost snapping as it was, almost like a bird hovering over its prey. But he didn't feel like answering, or obeying for that matter. It was surprising, he noted with some form of grim amusement, how exhausting it was being a captive. Even the fear had pretty much faded away. He'd lost track of time. He was having trouble staying awake…not that he found that option particularly favourable. After his failed escape attempt (after which he could have sworn he heard a cynical voice comment that even if he had found the stairs to the upper level, he'd have walked into one of the traps set up there and be utterly useless, which any idiot with half a brain could deduce would be a blessing masquerading around in the guise of the devil), it taken an age to gain his bearings again. During that time, as far as he could make out (which was actually just a tad murkier than his current situation), Loweemon, Agunimon, Ranamon, Mercurimon and their very annoying prisoner were crossing over the earth continent. The next continent as far as he remembered (and he just realised as he thought about it that the Digital World had reshuffled its locations) was the Forest Kingdom where the arachnid would stand trial for her numerous crimes.

Now what had that giant spider done?

Oh yeah. She'd trapped little baby digimon in her webs, placing them purposely (or so one would assume) in places where they played or gathered, somehow used her acid to dissolve them in a way that heavily corrupted their data but kept their forms stable enough to still exist, then wrapped them up into little cocoons. What she intended to do with those cocoons was anyone's guess. But it was still something they couldn't condone. But when a hopping mad Blitzmon had tried to defend the digimon on his continent, he wound up under Angewomon's care for an excruciating few weeks.

He'd have to be careful. If it weren't for the fact that his vision of those events were rather…hazy at best, he'd definitely be believing he was currently trapped in a continuous nightmare. He wasn't so sure he'd mind, if it hadn't been for his family and friends.

Only he was having trouble concentrating on them, and he wasn't about to let go of that. Especially since he wasn't fully awake in any case. He was, one could say, in an interim between being conscious and being subconscious. Sort of how he daydreamed in class most of the time he didn't need to give it his full attention.

Something seeped through his mouth and into his throat, and it burned. That snapped him out of it, and in normal circumstances he'd be rather annoyed. But the entire world had been dumped upside down, and his hands were almost completely numb. Even if he managed to untie himself or was lucky enough to be left untied, he probably would fail at opening the door.

He really only had one alternative. Keep hoping (so no-one murdered him the second he was rescued), keeping himself distracted and trying to muster up enough concentration to reach out to someone telepathically (totally Kouji's fault). Lowemon seemed far easier to manage than Kouji for some reason. Of course, he didn't know how much of a help Lowemon would be. Heck, he wasn't even sure how far he believed the whole telepathy thing, beyond knowing whether he was dead or alive.

He coughed a little before swallowing the bitter liquid. The almost scalding fluid slid reluctantly through his throat (he imagined it like a spider digging its claws into the lining of his oesophagus and he couldn't help but think of the adhesive and cohesive forces of liquid (and most typically water) as slimy silky spider webs and sharp hairy claws). It was a very good thing he wasn't arachnophobic otherwise he would probably have driven himself into a state of psychosis…or an anxiety attack at the very least. Still, if it wasn't for the fact that he felt persistently light headed and altogether "murky", he'd be creeping out. Oh…that, and the fact that it was perfectly normal to feel like your throat was made of sandpaper instead of a smooth epithelial layer stretched over the inside of a muscle tube like silver coating on taps that avoided a quick rust. Heh, that was a good way of describing it. His rusty throat. Considering all he'd had since the…well, he didn't have much choice except to call it a kidnapping (he thankfully noted that being a prisoner inside his own head while emotions of uncontrollable anger, hatred, pain and hunger (the last purely animal instinct) raged on with his body wasn't on par with his current experience), was a few mouthfuls of water at a couple of different intervals (he' lost track of the times), it was no wonder. It was probably to make sure he didn't dehydrate, but that hadn't explained the pricking feelings he had been feeling earlier. Almost like pins and needles. But everything was numb now. Even his head, and that had been hurting something horrible.

Even his thoughts seemed numb. Sort of like he was still largely stuck in a daydream (or the regular sort of dream perhaps; he wouldn't know). That was why most of him was still thinking about Lowemon and Archnemon and less of him had been paying attention to the woman and whatever was in the spoon she had jabbed between his lax lips and jaw. It certainly didn't taste like food, he realised, taking care not to swallow and simply allowing his pharynx (or whatever was actually doing the absorbing in his mouth; he thought it was the pharynx but he wasn't entirely sure) to absorb the liquid. It tasted a little like the stuff they (the Doctors) had given him in the hospital between the IV line and eating solid food. The chewing had hurt for awhile. It had something to do with signals being muddled when his jaw moved too much. But he hadn't been able to swallow much either, so that had ruled out the regular broth.

'Just a bit more and then you can go back to happily ignoring me.'

It was the raw pain and bitterness within the frigid iceberg that made him force his eyes open and look at her. His vision, like everything else, was hazy, but that could have been credited entirely towards lack of use. The truth of such a crediting however depended in the amount of time that had passed. He didn't quite trust his internal biological clock, even if it wasn't on vacation in the only oasis located on the half of the earth continent that didn't have the luxury of bordering the Forest Kingdom. In fact, they had the unfortunatenesses of joining up with the fire kingdom, as well as small parts of the steel kingdom. The downside of the new arrangement was that it was no longer possible to catch a Whamon and travel to anywhere on the ocean or a Trailmon to anywhere on land. Not only was there a no prisoner policy (after the whole Ofanimon fiasco with Angler and Cherubimon's four warriors – Duskmon had not had anything to do with that), but bodies of water split the land into largish islands as opposed to one gigantic land mass.

In any case, the woman looked like a blur of white, reminding him somewhat of how he had first seen Kouji (in his human form that is, not as Wolfmon) in the Digital World, when he himself had been Duskmon and drowning in Cherubimon's influence. The painful sort of blur that struck a chord somewhere in his heart.

It took him a few minutes and another mouthful to work out why. Oh, and a snap to "hurry up" and swallow…which he managed to a partial success on the second try. The third attempt dealt with the liquid that had remained and the bit of reflux from almost choking on it. The fourth attempt when easier. He'd managed to keep the entire spoonful down, which was a definite improvement, and he could see a little clearer too. Some of the numbness was beginning to fade; he could feel something shaking, but he was still too disorinented to figure out whether it was him or the surface he was on.

'You're sad about something,' he said quietly as the woman-Doctor screwed the cap back on. 'An angry sort of sad. Almost guilty…'

His tongue rolled languidly over the words, a little sloppily as if he was speaking in a foreign language where he could understand but couldn't get his tongue, thorax and whatever other parts of his mouth worked at converting intention into coherent speech, to mimic the right accent.

The woman lifted her chin proudly, but there was a sense of turmoil behind her hard brown eyes. 'Many people say it's sad,' she said, her voice still holding that bitterness, but the other couldn't help but wonder if he had imagined the hurt. 'But I have children and I would do anything for them.'

Her tone suggested a suppression of emotion. No doubt it normally contained a fierce challenge, as if daring another to judge her, but she couldn't well do that to a victim in a system she milked to give her children a life. At the most she could grudge them for the superior lives they held, and rationalise (a coping mechanism if nothing else; you had to be cold to survive) taking a piece and putting it elsewhere, but it wasn't particularly their fault. Just like it wasn't the fault of her children they were born into a country whose condition was degrading by the day to a single parent who could not save them from the system by its own laws.

The bottle slid into one of her many pockets and she moved out of his field of vision.

'When you have less aspirations, those closer to the truth and lower to the ground, it hurts a lot less when you can't reach them.' Her tone had changed. She sounded sad. The regular definition of sad. Almost like his mother sounded sometimes, but her inner nature was kind and gentle, not the sort that can mould into a frigid ice pillar.

Amazingly, they were actually having a conversation. Somewhat. If they could call the single statement and it's slightly more lengthy reply. She had, in that moment, appeared as the image of a mother. She was one after all. She had children.

Just as he had a mother. And a blurry image of her teary, smiling face popped into view. Like how he had seen her when he had woken up. But it was so hazy; he'd never be able to draw it out, even if he used charcoal-coated fingers. It was like trying to draw his father's face; he'd never managed to build up a satisfactory image. He didn't see how that was possible; he should have been able to. After all, hadn't he met his father? Hadn't he ever gotten around to drawing his long awaited family portrait after the entire family had been reunited? He could only seem to remember its incomplete frame with gaping holes lying at the back of his dresser.

Then the door slammed open, then shut, and the spell was broken. Everything was broken, like a spider's web (he couldn't help the obsession with spiders; he was blaming that arachnid for the record) fluttering around in a strong wind, torn from its foundations and floundering desperately to find some footing, latching onto anything it could stick to as opposed to the care the spider had taken to originally create the masterpiece.

He was awake. He was actually fully awake and coherent, for the first time, as far as he could tell, since his meeting with the wall and consequent knock to the head. At that moment he completely forgot about that arachnid. He didn't even see her leering face smirking at him from her cage.

The light reeled. It was suddenly far stronger, as if someone was shining a torch in his eyes, before darkness suddenly struck with the force of a dull-bladed knife. His senses had finally awakened after…well, he had no idea who long but it was certainly a significant amount of time, and the shock of having them taken to two extremes in such a short amount of time was expected to hurt.

'Be quiet,' a barely familiar voice snapped…not that he'd even said anything. Silence was generally the best defence he'd found during the long weeks spent at Cherubimon's castle with digimon who's loyalties were entirely questionable…even if they didn't take too kindly to being told that. He had said to Mercurimon as much, the old one that is, and the concequence had propelled him to take on his first fight as a defence against that insufferable know it all and a upholding of his own pride. There were some other noises, some loud enough to hurt his ears a little (both of them had been talking rather quietly and there had been only the sound of his own breathing in between).

Then there was a one-sided conversation which he couldn't help but pay attention to. And it just struck him at that point that everyone there had been speaking to him in English. And he had automatically been responding in the like.

It was remarkable how, after thinking you were used to a situation enough to not be thrown into a reflexive reaction, you find yourself doing just that.

It hadn't taken him too long to figure out who they were talking to.

''kaa-san! 'kaa-san! 'tou-san!'

He threw his weight forward on reflex, but strong hands latched onto his shoulders and held him in place. It was pointless, he thought for a moment. He was tied down already. Even then, he struggled a little uselessly before freezing again at the next words.

'I'm afraid I can't do that,' the speaker on this end said smoothly, and footsteps echoed as if the call, and the caller, were coming closer. 'You see, the less the web flails about, the better. But I'll give you an alternative. I'll send the scraps home in a pretty little box.'

The hands gripping his shoulders tightened enough to be painful, and if it had been a female with long manicured nails, perhaps she might have even been able to draw blood with the force being exerted. Too strongly to be a warning.

Perhaps it was the words the other had ended with. Or perhaps the sudden enormity had decided to rear its ugly and unrefined head, as opposed to lurking about on the sea floor. With a start, he remembered the other words which had terrified him so. He'd remembered the look on his mother's face when he'd seen her last. He'd remembered every feature in his father's form, down to the crease on his forehead that seemed doomed to remain there forever. He remembered Shinya hadn't allowed Takuya within a mile of his hair after the donkey tail had gotten stuck, complaining the other would shear it off completely, even though the other protested that he wasn't even carrying scissors on him. He remembered that once the tail had come off and everything had been said and done for the day, Shinya had swiped his brother's goggles as revenge and put them on a stray cat that somehow wound up in the garbage dump. He remembered Takuya had retaliated by swiping his brother's memory card and wiping it clean, and Shinya had combated with stealing the other's USB, accidently deleting a very important assignment and getting his elder brother suspended. He remembered their mother had been pretty mad at the both of them and sent them off to their grandfather's for the week. And apparently the old guy was an ex-soldier. He remembered trying to remember all that what felt like an age ago but ultimately failing. But remembering it right then and there made the desperation in him bubble and churn even further.

It felt like how it had watching the elevator carrying his father drop. The sudden realisation that he'd never see or hear or talk to him again if he didn't do something. Without thinking he had ran down the stairs, slipping because he had gone too fast, too recklessly…It felt like how the spirits of darkness had ripped away from his own spirit, and with them, all the evil influence they had carried. When the weight of his feelings, warped and mutated, and how they had hurt people he'd never even met…

''tou-san!' he shrieked, ignoring the pressure holding him back. His eyes were burning under the blindfold. They wouldn't stop him. They couldn't. Hands were holding him in place. Ropes were looped around his wrists and ankles, binding him in position. But nothing was tying his soul, his spirit, down except himself.

He realised, at that moment, that he'd never told his father he loved him.

'Watashi wa anata o aishite!'

There was a bit of a laugh that sounded almost sadistic. In fact, it did sound sadistic. Perhaps it if had been another time and place and circumstance, he'd have been trying to psychoanalyse the guy.

'How cute. You hear him screaming for you? I'll give you another chance.'

He had barely drawn another breath before he suddenly froze. For half a second, perhaps less, he couldn't figure out why his heart had stopped beating or his breath had caught in his throat. But then he felt something sharp, accompanied with a throbbing pain that was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was nothing like getting his digi-code ripped from his body. It was nothing like being crushed between pure light and darkness. And it was even more unbearable than either of those in a matter of a few seconds or so, because those had reasons. His heart suddenly felt like it had been doused in ice, and he could feel himself trembling somewhat, faintly though, murkily…

Drums echoed in his ears, louder but at the same time softer. As if the beat was slowing down. There was something coppery and bitter on his lips, but it was vanishing. His entire body felt funny, except his…something around his stomach or his chest. There was something warm on his skin, and he found himself partially thankful for that, because he was cold. Freezing actually. He couldn't seem to stop shaking. He couldn't get rid of the roaring in his ears, even though he felt so dizzy.

He tried to push himself to his feet, but he found he couldn't. It didn't even occur to him to figure out why. He urged his legs up. To run. Somewhere. Home maybe. People were always safe at home. Home would tell him what was going on. He couldn't see anything. The only thing he could feel was pain.

There was something else in his ears too. Something important. But it was gone. And then even the pounding of drums stopped. The pain stopped. The numbness became absolute. The darkness became absolute.

He was darkness.

Mercifully.